Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1881 — A Nocturnal Cow. [ARTICLE]

A Nocturnal Cow.

The prevailing cow for this season seems to be a seal-brown cow with a stub tail, which is arranged as a night key. The other day I had just planted' my celluloid radishes,and irrigated my royal Bengal turnips, and sown my hunting case summer squashes. That night the blow fell. The queen of night was high in the blue vault of heaven; so, too, the twinkling stars. All nature was hushed to repose. I heard a stealthy step near the conservatory and I arose. It was a lovely sight. At the head of the procession was a sealbrown creature with a tail like the handle of a pump. This was a cow. Following at a rapid gait was a bewitch picture of alabaster limbs and gothic oints and Wamsutta muslin night robe. That was the writer. By and by there was a crash, and the sealbrown cow went home carrying the garden gate with her as a-kindof keep- * sake. She had plenty of garden gates at home in her collection, but she had none of that particular pattern. The writer of these lines then carefully brushed the sand off his feet with a * pillowsham aud retired to rest. The next morning I went out to feed my royal, self-acting hen, and found this cow wedged-into the chicken coop. I secured a large picket from the fence, and ! took my eoat off and breathed in a full breath. I did not want to kill her: I simply wanted to make her wish she had died of membranous croup when she was young. I brought down the picket with the condensed strength, and eagerness, and wratffof two long suffering years. It struck the comer of the hen house. There was a deafening crash, and then all Was st ill, save the low, rippling laugh of the cow as she stood in the alley and encouraged me as I nailed up the hen house again. Looking back over my whole life, it seems to me that it is strewn with nothing but the ragged rujns of my busted anticipations.